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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26416645">Crescent of the Moon</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShiDreamin/pseuds/ShiDreamin'>ShiDreamin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>You and I (Retainer Swap) [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, M/M, Pre-Time Skip, Retainer Swap</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 13:00:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,322</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26416645</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShiDreamin/pseuds/ShiDreamin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I fear I am turning into a monster.” Dimitri’s voice is quiet, hushed, in that warning pitch he bares only when he is alone. Alone except.<br/>“So?” Hubert smiles, sharper than any dagger.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd &amp; Hubert von Vestra, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Hubert von Vestra</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>You and I (Retainer Swap) [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1920106</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Crescent of the Moon</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There is fear in the darkness.</p>
<p>Dimitri had never considered himself afraid of the night. There is beauty to be found under the moon’s gentle glow such as the blooming of Casablanca lilies along the monastery walls and the gentle pitter patter of fish breaking through the lake surface, some only ever after the sun set. The libraries smell of old wood and the gentle scent of pine candles burnt down to nothing, their gentle flicker all that illuminates the towering halls.</p>
<p>There are few places in Fodlan quite as peaceful as Garreg Mach. Their beloved gatekeeper maintains constant vigilance day and night, and there is no doubting the prowess of the Knights of Seiros.</p>
<p>Dimitri’s steps are loud, metal clanking against tile floors. He had ought to switch out his armored boots after training today, but sudden exhaustion had taken ahold of him. They feel too tight: his boots, his gloves, and he rips off the leather coverings and tosses them to the ground. The wind tonight is strong, and before his eyes it whisks away his discarded gloves, floating in the air before falling to the lake.</p>
<p>There is the sound of a fish breaking the surface.</p>
<p>Dimitri’s fingers leave scratches along marble pillars, fragmented cracks that spread from floor to ceiling. The sound of his metallic clinks grow, echoing against the monastery walls, hollow. Though the wind tickles the nape of his neck, he finds it wet against his fingers, smelling of sweat, or iron, or—</p>
<p> “I fear I am turning into a monster.” Dimitri’s voice is quiet, hushed, in that warning pitch he bares only when he is alone. Alone except.</p>
<p>“So?” Hubert smiles, sharper than any dagger.</p>
<p>Hubert’s ability to dissolve into the shadows had once frightened Dimitri until he realized that it meant that he could come and play when no one else could. Faerghus’ castle halls were terrifying in their stillness, the once hustled chatter of maids and servants replaced by the dull wind and shattered glass, the rain seeking into the royal carpet. When once Dimitri had sought refuge in his room after a long day of socialization was now a building frozen in time, the refuge of quiet ever expanding until it had taken with it his voice and his taste.</p>
<p>It had been Hubert, whose cat eyes shone in the darkness, who had visited when the human skin Dimitri wore flaked away into nothing.</p>
<p>“You should be asleep,” Dimitri warns, though his voice is a dull echo. Hubert says nothing, never needs to, the simple raise of his eyebrow conveying enough. Dimitri is too aware of the growing eyebags on his face, evidence that betrays his sagging smiles.</p>
<p> “I’m heading to the library,” he says instead. Though Dimitri cannot hear Hubert’s steps behind his own echoing clinks, he knows that his friend is there. Every drag of his foot is slow, measured, as though on a stage, eyes all on him. There’s no need for that. It’s only Hubert.</p>
<p>“You haven’t forgotten your promise, have you?”</p>
<p>Hubert, and the icy hand that grips right through Dimitri, punching a gasp from his lungs.</p>
<p>Dad frowns, nothing more than a transparent wisp on the side, placing his hand once more on Dimitri’s shoulder. It flickers past, as chilling and sharp as winter Faerghus storms.</p>
<p>“Can you hear me, son?” Dad never sounded so quiet. He had been patient, kind, and cheerful. A man of the house, he’d say, laughing as he spun Dimitri around in circles. Even as king, he made time every night to wander into Dimitri’s room to spin a story, share a snack, sing a lullaby. Dimitri had loved his father.</p>
<p>But he looks so venomous now, crimson streaks running down his face, shoulders broken and bent out of shape. His hand tightens on Dimitri and it hurts now, sharp in a way his father never was, and his flickering form drifts closer until they’re nearly eye to missing eye.</p>
<p>“Son?”</p>
<p>“Your Highness, we’ve arrived.”</p>
<p>Right. Hubert gestures to the library entrance, the soft candlelight illuminating the slanted smile on his face. The smell of old books is always so tempting, ever so as the shadows grow longer and the bags under his eyes heavier. The truth is here, somehow in Garreg Mach. He just knows it.</p>
<p>Dimitri sidesteps the willowy form of his father, watching the man fade to nothing.</p>
<p>“Hubert, please, just Dimitri. We’re friends.” The words are familiar and easy to force out even against the cotton in his mouth. Perhaps it is exactly why Hubert continues to insist on calling him such titles, even though Dimitri has assured him time and time again that they are friends, and classmates.</p>
<p>Equals. Somewhat.</p>
<p>It helps that Hubert resembles a ghost even on the best of days.</p>
<p>“Nonsense,” Hubert scoffs, trailing behind Dimitri as the prince trails the shelves, his fingers hitting every individual protruding spine. “I would never be so rude.”</p>
<p>“Hubert, aren’t you quite proud of your… ahem, rudeness?” It’s hard not to smile, albeit sheepishly, when Dimitri recalls the harsh words Hubert had for the other house leaders after last week’s meeting. Tensions had run high, the strange appearance and disappearance of this “Flame Empire” an endless dispute, and Hubert had been unafraid to let loose several scathing remarks about the other lords and their retainers. It had been mortifying in the moment, but seeing Hubert so determinately quick to defend Dimitri had been, dare he say it, sweet.</p>
<p>“I’ve no idea.” Perhaps Hubert’s sliver of a smile shouldn’t cast such a long shadow, stretching beyond the shelves to the flickering apparitions lingering by the empty tables. It almost appears to have a face, slit eyes that beckon Dimitri closer to the shelves that hide forbidden secrets. Stories about people, monsters, and legends that Dimitri had never heard of before.</p>
<p>He does not know why Hubert knows where these tales are hidden.</p>
<p>He does not ask.</p>
<p>“It’s quite late, your highness. Shall we return to your room?” It’s unlike Hubert to be so forward, but perhaps it is Dimitri unlike himself, answering the calls of ghosts under watchful eyes, dissecting books that whisper about curses and wonders. His father peers over the tops of the texts he collects, and in spite of himself Dimitri finds his sleeves wiping the covers as though to remove the dripping rust puddles that pour from his father’s neck.</p>
<p>“How much longer will you waste your time?” His father spits, once proud words turned bitter in his white eyes. “While you dawdle with a killer, we rot in our graves.”</p>
<p>“Will you be accompanying me?” Dimitri offers.</p>
<p>“Have you so quickly abandoned your role as a king? As my son?”</p>
<p>“Of course,” Hubert replies. In one smooth motion he removes the stack from Dimitri’s arms, jostling the blood stains until they simply scrape off the book, floating aimlessly to the ground he treads on.</p>
<p>“Beast!” His father cries, face twisted in the clouds. Hubert walks through his father, cold, grey, breaking into mist as Hubert turns, that dangerous curve of his mouth.</p>
<p>“Let’s go.” The shadows preen as Hubert bows, curtailing with him. They wash over Dimitri, dark and cold and lonely, wrapping around his legs, his arms, his eyes, until he cannot see the bloodied visage of his father, cannot hear the rasp of a man long dead.</p>
<p>“Your highness,” Hubert calls in the empty, the library clear of occupants, the books dirty from dust and misuse, not blood and flames of years past. The shadows linger by their feet, long arches that soak into the floor, and should Dimitri turn to track the bricks he will find that there are only two he knows, that could be humans if they were not so stretched, so wretched, the flickering shape of a demon.</p>
<p>Demons. There are two shadows, after all.</p>
<p>“Dimitri,” Hubert says.</p>
<p>“Hubert,” Dimitri responds.</p>
<p>They can be monsters together.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>dun dun dunnnnn</p>
<p>part 1 of the 3 part retainer series!!! very excited to finally get this out here, I've been wanting to write these ships forever<br/>some FUN funky notes about the dimibert dynamic:<br/>- hubert is unashamedly in love with feral Dimitri. He is. proud of himself and his taste.<br/>- Edelgard thinks Hubert is a creepy lil man when he's on another side!! He thinks she's pretty (pretty weird too) but she's like "wow disgusting"<br/>- Dimitri is faster to go to the "dark side" since Hubert eggs him on, but he's also a lot more accepting of that side of himself. Hubert is much harsher than Dedue and snarls at Felix a lot.<br/>- Claude finds Dimitri and Hubert very interesting contrast wise until things start to fall apart, and then he'll stay far, far away, thanks.</p>
<p>As always, thank you for reading!! Hit me up on <a href="https://twitter.com/shidreamin/"> twitter </a>! &lt;3 Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated!!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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